Dan's Adventure

My first experience of Indian driving was on the taxi ride from the airport to my hotel in Mumbai. The first thing I should point out about the taxis is that none of them have wing mirrors and secondly every single one of them is dented all over. The third thing that I discovered is that the drivers don’t like to use indicators, instead the horn is used just as commonly as an indicator as it is for a greeting. “Honk OK Please” is plastered over the back of trucks and everyone takes great delight honking their horns at every opportunity.

I’m sure there are rules of the road in India, but it seems like the drivers pick and choose where and when to follow them. Drivers undercut, over take and squeeze between other vehicles in queues of traffic whenever they get the chance. A three lane road was seven wide with traffic on each side and I’m sure at one point we were driving along the pavement to undertake and get round a corner quicker.

This style of driving isn’t unique to Mumbai. I’ve experienced it on the bus between Aurangabad and Jalgaon where I was sure we were going to have a head on collision with a truck as the driver had failed miserably in his bid to overtake a truck on our side of the road, and I’ve been terrified every time I’ve set foot in an auto rickshaw. The craziest driving I’ve so far witnessed was my auto rickshaw driver in Varanasi, despite driving an auto rickshaw that was decorated with lots of pink, the guy was mental. As soon as the road was clear he’d be going full throttle only to end up right up behind someone else moments later at which point the horn would inevitably go and we would come screeching to a halt behind bicycles, children and cows.

The other thing that has taken some getting used to is that people and animals are also considered traffic here. Pavements are very rare and even when they are present, they are seldom used. People, cows, dogs and goats will all be walking down the road with rickshaws, taxis and trucks treating them like any other vehicle.

Its all a bit chaotic, but somehow it works.